THE SUN.
“Now when the cheerless empire of the sky
To Capricorn the Centaur Archer yields,
And fierce Aquarius stains the inverted year;
Hung o’er the farthest verge of heaven, the Sun
Scarce spreads o’er ether the dejected day.
Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot
His struggling rays in horizontal lines,
Through the thick air; as clothed in cloudy storm,
Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky;
And, soon descending, to the long dark night,
Wide-shading all, the prostrate world resigns.”
But as the days go by, his rays no longer struggle “through the thick air” in “horizontal lines,” nor does he so closely “skirt the southern sky,” but higher mounting pierces with penetrating power the dark shadows, lessening “the long, dark night,” driving “the dusky shades away.” So rapidly do these changes occur that in four weeks our daylight increases one hour and seven minutes, or our length of days from ten hours and nine minutes on the 1st to eleven hours sixteen minutes on the 28th. On the 1st, 16th and 28th the sun rises at 7:09, 6:52 and 6:34 a. m., and on the same days sets at 5:18, 5:36 and 5:50 p. m. respectively.